4.5 Using the Ports Collection

4.5.1 Obtaining the Ports Collection

Before you can install ports, you must first obtain the ports collection--which is essentially a set of Makefiles, patches, and description files placed in /usr/ports.

When installing your FreeBSD system, Sysinstall asked if you would like to install the ports collection. If you chose no, you can follow these instructions to obtain the ports collection:

The alternative method to obtain and keep your ports collection up to date is by using CVSup. Look at the ports CVSup file, /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile. See Using CVSup (Section A.6) for more information on using CVSup and the mentioned file.

4.5.2 Installing Ports

The first thing that should be explained when it comes to the ports collection is what is actually meant by a ``skeleton''. In a nutshell, a port skeleton is a minimal set of files that tell your FreeBSD system how to cleanly compile and install a program. Each port skeleton includes:

• A Makefile. The Makefile contains various statements that specify how the application should be compiled and where it should be installed on your system.

• A distinfo file. This file contains information about the files that must be downloaded to build the port, and checksums, to ensure that those files have not been corrupted during the download.

• A files directory. This directory contains patches to make the program compile and install on your FreeBSD system. Patches are basically small files that specify changes to particular files. They are in plain text format, and basically say ``Remove line 10'' or ``Change line 26 to this ...''. Patches are also known as ``diffs'' because they are generated by the diff(1) program.

  This directory may also contain other files used in building the port.

• A pkg-comment file. This is a one-line description of the program.

• A pkg-descr file. This is a more detailed, often multiple-line, description of the program.

• A pkg-plist file. This is a list of all the files that will be installed by the port. It also tells the ports system what files to remove upon deinstallation.

Some ports have other files, such as pkg-message. The ports system uses these files to handle special situations. If you want more details on these files, and on ports in general, check out the FreeBSD Porter's Handbook.

Now that you have enough background information to know what the ports collection is used for, you are ready to install your first port. There are two ways this can be done, and each is explained below.

Before we get into that however, you will need to choose a port to install. There are a few ways to do this, with the easiest method being the ports listing on the FreeBSD web site. You can browse through the ports listed there or use the search function on the site. Each port also includes a description so you can read a bit about each port before deciding to install it.

Another method is to use the whereis(1) command. Simply type whereis file, where file is the program you want to install. If it is found on your system, you will be told where it is, like so:

    # whereis lsof
    lsof: /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof

This tells us that lsof (a system utility) can be found in the /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof directory.

Yet another way of finding a particular port is by using the ports collection's built-in search mechanism. To use the search feature, you will need to be in the /usr/ports directory. Once in that directory, run make search name=program-name where program-name is the name of the program you want to find. For example, if you were looking for lsof:

    # cd /usr/ports
    # make search name=lsof
    Port:   lsof-4.56.4
    Path:   /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof
    Info:   Lists information about open files (similar to fstat(1))
    Maint:  [email protected]
    Index:  sysutils
    B-deps: 
    R-deps:

The part of the output you want to pay particular attention to is the ``Path:'' line, since that tells you where to find it. The other information provided is not needed in order to install the port directly, so it will not be covered here.

For more in-depth searching you can also use make search key=string where string is some text to search for. This searches port names, comments, descriptions and dependencies and can be used to find ports which relate to a particular subject if you don't know the name of the program you are looking for.

In both of these cases, the search string is case-insensitive. Searching for ``LSOF'' will yield the same results as searching for ``lsof''.

Now that you have found a port you would like to install, you are ready to do the actual installation. The port includes instructions on how to build source code, but no actual source code. You can get the source code from a CDROM or from the Internet. Source code is distributed in whatever manner the software author desires. Frequently this is a tarred and gzipped file, but it might be compressed with some other tool or even uncompressed. The program source code, whatever form it comes in, is called a ``distfile''. You can get the distfile from a CDROM or from the Internet.

    # cd /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof

    # make
    >> lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist in /usr/ports/distfiles/.
    >> Attempting to fetch from file:/cdrom/ports/distfiles/.
    ===>  Extracting for lsof-4.57
    ...
    [extraction output snipped]
    ...
    >> Checksum OK for lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz.
    ===>  Patching for lsof-4.57
    ===>  Applying FreeBSD patches for lsof-4.57
    ===>  Configuring for lsof-4.57
    ...
    [configure output snipped]
    ...
    ===>  Building for lsof-4.57
    ...
    [compilation output snipped]
    ...
    #

    # make install
    ===>  Installing for lsof-4.57
    ...
    [installation output snipped]
    ...
    ===>   Generating temporary packing list
    ===>   Compressing manual pages for lsof-4.57
    ===>   Registering installation for lsof-4.57
    ===>  SECURITY NOTE: 
          This port has installed the following binaries which execute with
          increased privileges.
    #

    # make install
    >> lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist in /usr/ports/distfiles/.
    >> Attempting to fetch from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/.
    Receiving lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz (439860 bytes): 100%
    439860 bytes transferred in 18.0 seconds (23.90 kBps)
    ===>  Extracting for lsof-4.57
    ...
    [extraction output snipped]
    ...
    >> Checksum OK for lsof_4.57D.freebsd.tar.gz.
    ===>  Patching for lsof-4.57
    ===>  Applying FreeBSD patches for lsof-4.57
    ===>  Configuring for lsof-4.57
    ...
    [configure output snipped]
    ...
    ===>  Building for lsof-4.57
    ...
    [compilation output snipped]
    ...
    ===>  Installing for lsof-4.57
    ...
    [installation output snipped]
    ...
    ===>   Generating temporary packing list
    ===>   Compressing manual pages for lsof-4.57
    ===>   Registering installation for lsof-4.57
    ===>  SECURITY NOTE: 
          This port has installed the following binaries which execute with
          increased privileges.
    #

4.5.3 Removing Installed Ports

Now that you know how to install ports, you are probably wondering how to remove them, just in case you install one and later on you decide that you installed the wrong port. We will remove our previous example (which was lsof for those of you not paying attention). As with installing ports, the first thing you must do is change to the port directory, /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof. After you change directories, you are ready to uninstall lsof. This is done with the make deinstall command:

    # cd /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof
    # make deinstall
    ===>  Deinstalling for lsof-4.57

That was easy enough. You have removed lsof from your system. If you would like to reinstall it, you can do so by running make reinstall from the /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof directory.

The make deinstall and make reinstall sequence does not work once you have run make clean. If you want to deinstall a port after cleaning, use pkg_delete(1) as discussed in the Packages section of the Handbook.